Bartolli's Pond

Pond Readings Summary:

July 7: A:0-0.1; Nitrite:0; Nitrate:0-1; PH:8.5; O2:8;
Aug 28: A:0-0.1; Nitrite:0; Nitrate:0; PH:8.5; O2:5-8;
Sept 25: A:0-0.1; Nitrite:0; Nitrate:0-1; PH:8.5; O2:8-11;Temp:19deg
Oct 28: A:0; Nitrite:0; Nitrate:0; PH:8.5; O2:8; Temp:15deg+17deg Ambient
2007: Mar 13: A:0-0.1mg/l; Nitrite:0; Nitrate:0; PH:8; O2:8-11; Temp 10deg
2007: May 29: A:0-0.1mg/l; Nitrite:0; Nitrate: 0; PH:8.5; O2:8-11;Temp: 14 + 16 Ambient
2007: Sept 7: A: 0-0.1mg/l; Nitrite: 0; Nitrate: 0; PH:8.5; O2: 5-8

Background: V Small pond, 1m2, approx 350 ltres, pump/cascade, no filter (but see later)

2 fishies ("Ginger" & "Whitey", recently discovered at least 4 baby fishies! When they grow abit I'll have to relocate them, probably to "Aged Ps" pond as Hagar recently visited & cleared out their stock of ten 5" goldfish.

2 froggies & at least 25 snails. Came back from the pub last night to find Froggy No 2 merrily jumping up the cascade on his way to hunt slugs (although he didn't have a torch, a skewer, a bucket or a kettle of boiling water!)

Noticed in last two weeks massive expansion of elodea & millfoil, also noticed not v clear water with distinct  suspended sediment. So, trimmed/thinned out the the plants a bit, noticed a fair bit of dead elodea which I removed, maybe this is helping the snail explosion? Resolved to check plants regularly to aid water circulation, also decided to get a pond test kit.

Cleaned the cascade & realised that the gravel I put in to hide the liner is acting as a sort of filter (a bit obvious really!) so rinsed the gravel in pond water and cleaned the liner. Resolved to make this a regular task. Also decided to put more gravel in the top tier so the hose outlet is covered, in order to try to improve the filtering effect.

Trying to think of ways to suck out sediment without forking out on a big expensive pond vac, might try one of those old "bicycle-pump" type garden sprayers?

Tried my new test kit this morning:

PH: 8.5;
O2: 2;
Nitrite: 0;
Nitrate: much closer to 0 than 12.5, prob 1-2;
Ammonia: 0-0.1;

Concerned about O2 level, tried again at 4pm, & got reading of 8. Probably misread the first one as I held the vial up to the window rather than against the white card, so that should be ok, but will recheck early one morning soon.

According to the leaflet PH 8.5 is a tad high & poss due to excessive plant growth (ties in with recent explosion in plants)

Pleasantly surprised at other low readings!

Spot the pond-keeper in the 2nd photo!

More photos now at: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/bartolli

14/7/6:

Rechecked O2 level early one morning, got 8.5 again, wonder how accurate these test kits are?

Removed yet more elodea, seems to be growing faster than my overdraft!

Put more gravel in the top cascade, over the hose outlet, might try to cobble up some sort of basket affair to make removal & cleaning it a bit easier.

Still pondering about how to remove silt, really don't want to spend loads of dosh on a vac for such a small pond.

The hot weather seems to have made Whitey really, really, really horny,  > he's chasing poor ginger all over the place, she can't even nibble her food eithout getting harassment.

13/8/06: Been a while since last post, so a few things to catch up on:

Improved the filtering in my waterfall by adding more gravel. Have devised a new cleaning regime which involves positioning a bent wire coathangar over which I have stretched a pair of my wifes old tights, under the leading edge of each fall. By then stirring the gravel & brushing the big stones, all the crap gets dislodged and collected in the tights. The amount of gunge this collects is quite impressive, it takes about 10 minutes and I do this every 3-4 days. After two weeks of doing this, the end result is that all the sediment which was "hanging" in the pond and making it cloudy, is now virtually non-existant! Hoorah, nice clear water.

Also yesterday I removed a massive triffid (see photo in posts if you want to tell me what it is), the roots were huge, square white things snaking all around the pond. I hope I got it all.

Update on the baby fishies, there are at least 8: 5 coloured ones, 2 blacks & 1 small black. On top of that Whitey still seems to be very horny. Its strangely satisfying creating a pond and then having things happily living in it, although I would like some more insects, as we do not appear to have any skaters, whirligigs etc.

19/8/6: Well, surprised to see my last post there, cos my PC crashed just as I was finishing it and I've logged on today to re-enter it !

The huge weed turned out to be lobelia siphilitica, thanks for all the suggestions.

The day after ripping the "weed" out, I decided the pump needed a clean cos it was realllllly slooooooow. When I opened it up, inside the strainer was completely full of huge balls of LS roots, now the pump is like a geyser. 

A couple of cleans with my patented "wifes-tights" filtering system and all is now back to normal.

Anyway update on the baby fish front, there are now 11 confirmed babies, 6 coloured ones and 5 black ones. They range from .5" to 1.5". The coloured ones are the spitting image of parents, one even has his dad's nose!

The babies always seem to be hungry, and are also first to the food. How do fish communicate? When I put the food in, 1 or 2 babies come and tuck in, and then a few minutes later all the others come hairing out to have a go, almost as if they can hear the first two munching away.

Mum + Dad seem quite happy to take a back seat and watch the kids eat, maybe they're too tired to eat after all the rumpy-pumpy.

I'm amazed that such a small pond could result in 11 baby fishies, when my mum + dad come round they're stunned as well, because they hardly have any baby fish in their much bigger pond.

Our 2 froggies are doing well, I was doing the watering the other day, and disturbed froggie no1 (now called Floyd) who was hunting by the hostas. Excellent, go get 'em Floyd! All I need now is a frog who eats red lily beetles and a frog who eats greenflies (lady birds don't eat enough). I'll put up with the caterpillars cos  I like butterflies and moths.

Incidentally, the problem I had with my lily leaves being munched seems to have been resolved. I never really found out who was to blame but I just "rinsed" the leaves in the pond-water whenever I was passing, and now it seems to be fine and making more nice uneaten leaves.

PS recently posted some photos of various butterflies etc here: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/bartolli

At last managed to get a half-decent photo of some of our babies, being watched over by an attentive dad.

Mimulus has finished flowering, only flowering plants in pond at moment at pontederia & mint, Lob Cardinalis still flowering strongly next to pond.

Redid some tests to see if baby fish have changed anything:
ammonia 0-0.1
Nitrate+nitrate 0
PH 8.5
O2 5-8

No change from previous which surprised me cos I thought with  the babies getting bigger things would change slightly.

7/9/6: Noticed another v small red baby fish, so the count is now 12 + the 2 parents.

Two of the bigger babies have just been transplanted to Aged P's pond, leaves me with 10 babies! Will see how the first two get on & then transplant a few more when they get a bit bigger.

It was quite peculiar pouring the two fish into their new pond, mixed feelings of pride, sadness and excitement (how sad is that!!!). Anyway I guess they'll soon settle in. Both Aged P's were excited to be getting two new fish as Hagar had reduced their stock to just 2.

25/9: Noticed one of the babies swimming strangely, tail down wagging furiously to stay up, poss swim bladder prob? Withheld food for a couple of days and then seemed to be ok, will keep an eye on him!

Invested in a pond thermometer!

Pond readings:

PH: 8.5-9
Ammonia: 0-0.1
Nitrite:0
Nitrate: 0-12.5
Temp: 19 deg C
O2: 8-11

Slightly concerned re PH, Ammonia & nitrate, torrential thunderstorm on Sunday reduced PH to 8.5.

According to my test kit booklet PH may be up due to "excessive plant growth", so trimmed back a few things which were a bit straggly anyway.
According to the same booklet, ammonia and nitrates can poss be lowered by "promoting vigorous plant growth", seems to go against what it said for PH!

Anyway decided that its time I invested in a decent filter so will have a good hunt round, quite like the look of the Hozelok Bioforce range.

28 October:

Things seem to be quietening down for Autumn.
Pond very clear and cleaned out the cascade gravel beds. Fishies watching with interest but they aren't very active at the moment. No sign of froggies.

Trimmed some of the marginals and did some tests:

Ammonia 0-0.1
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
PH 8.5
O2 8
Pond Temp 15
Amb Temp 17

The two baby fish I gave to Aged Ps seem well and have settled in.

Cat Parsley seems happy to be back from the cattery after our hols and v happy to be back in the garden watching the birdies & fishies.

March 13

Cleaned out a bit of debris;

Did some tests:

Ammonia: 0-0.1 mg/l
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
PH: 8
O2: 8-11 mg/l
Pond temp: 10

Got some frogspawn from Aged Ps' a few weeks ago, not long till it hatches, lots of tadpoles wriggling away, almost ready to burst out! Want more frogs!

Fishies starting to show a bit of interest, ginger & whitey and several of the babies are regularly seen now.

Not much algae at the moment, hope it stays that way!

April 7

Pond temp 11 deg.

Started feeding the fishies again, they had a bit but weren't that hungry. Spotted 4 of last years babies, hope the other 6 are still ok.

Saw the first froggie of the year, a nice big chinky one, but no sign whatsoever of the tadpoles, hopefully they're just hiding somewhere.

April 28

Tidied up one of the overgrown baskets.

Have re-started regime of cleaning the gravel in the waterfall using tights & coathangars.

Ginger & Whitey are active again & feeling horny, maybe more babies will appear?  >

Now seen 6 of last years babies, 2 missing including the gorgeous little blue one, maybe they didn't make it through winter?  :'(

The two babies which were transferred to Aged P's pond last september, have resurfaced and have grown a staggering amount, they are twice as big as their siblings in our pond!

Piccy attached of pond in spring, always nice to see the phlox flowering.

Transferred more tadpoles from Aged P's pond, hope they give us more froggies!

Annoyingly, the 3 mimulus that I split out from the planter in the pond and put into a bucket a few weeks ago are doing better than the ones left in the pond!

Typha minima is "flowering", if thats the right term, surrounded by mint which needs trimming back a bit.

Fishies all well at the moment but haven't seen many frogs for a while. The tadpoles are all hiding in the plants so hopefully will soon get some more froglets.

Pond readings all ok as as before.

The water lily is getting eaten again, same as last year. I'm now fairly certain that its the snails as nothing else seems to go near it. Keep rubbing off the snail eggs from the underside incase its baby snails doing the damage. But more or less decided to get an old trough or sink and move the waterlily into that, & then try to keep the trough snail free.

15/6/07:

After months of thinking about it, I bit the bullet last weekend and bought a Laguna 2500UVC filter.

I couldn't put it where I wanted to, cos the builders had surrounded the sewer manhole trunk with tonnes of cement, so ended up putting it at the back of the waterfall, underneath where the new decking is going to go. Easy enough to fit, two hardest things were:

a) Finding someone locally who stocked 1" hose elbows!
b) getting the d*mn elbows onto the hose! Ended up dunking the hose into boiling water for a few mins;

Also had to dismantle half of the rockery to modify and run the hoses to/from the filter.

Eventually got it done, & within 3 hours of turning the pump back on all the suspended sediment in the pond had magically disappeared, hurrah!  O0

The other good thing is that having the filter under where the decking is going means that I have now actually gotten my finger out and started doing the decking (after over 1 year of thinking about it!). Weather permitting will finish it this weekend, eternal optimist.

After all the rain, pond level was a bit high, so during a break in the rain today, thought I'd get rid of some of the water. So, got a spare bit of 1" hose, hacksawed off the excess hose-tail on the filter drain fitting, idea being to use the drain outlet on the filter to get rid of some water while cleaning the filter. Tried to get the hose on the fitting, what a pr*t, I'd hacksawed off too much of the hose-tail, so now have to buy a short length of bigger hose!

Have decided to try to hinge a couple of lengths of deck plank so I can get easy access to the filter.

Will post some piccies when its all finished.

25/6/07:

OK, decking is almost finished, will take some pics when it stops raining!

Got up this morning, the pond was full to the brim, so took the oppurtunity to use the filter's cleaning system to extract some water. Ended up with 4 bucket fulls of lovely dirty water. Very pleased at how easy this filter is to clean with its two pump action handles. O0

Also, since the filter has been installed the water's been lovely & clear, and I haven't had to clean the gravel in the waterfall once. Would heartily reccommend these filters to anyone thinking about getting one.

Discovered where froggie number 1 hides during the day, there's a little gap between the stones forming the waterfall, and he sits quite happily in his cave. He's the only frog we've seen this year, so he's a bit like a hermit and seems to have taken vows of silence and celibacy. Hopefully, all the tadpoles we added earlier will soon frogamorphasise and disturb his peace (although we haven't seen them for ages, I think they're hiding in all the crowded marginals).